Power fault cause narrowed down

The power fault that
resulted in the loss of power to north Christchurch
customers on Wednesday night last week has been narrowed
down to likely windblown debris hitting key equipment in
Orion's Papanui substation. The outage, which started at
around 9.30pm, initially affected approximately 30,000
customers. 18,000 customers remained without power for
three and a half hours.

Orion CEO Rob Jamieson says "since
Wednesday evening we've undertaken extensive multiple
investigations to try to determine the cause of the network
failure. Specialist teams have meticulously examined 18km
of high voltage lines running between Papanui to Islington,
and other in-house experts have thoroughly inspected our
Papanui and Islington substations. No damage has been
found. By eliminating line and substation problems, we have
been able to conclude that the fault was most likely caused
by a small piece of material being blown into specialised
equipment. The lines are now back in operation."

"Debris
falling at a particular spot on our high voltage equipment,
meant that power supply was lost to not one, but both of our
lines to the area. As the object would have exploded on
impact, meaning no trace of it remained after the event, we
have had to methodically work through a process of
elimination prior to being able conclude this was the cause
of the failure."

"While definitely a regrettable incident
and we apologise for the inconvenience it may have caused
some of our customers, we are happy that our emergency
procedures worked well on the night and we were able to
restore power within 3 and a half hours in wet, dark and
windy conditions. The incident will also hopefully serve as
a reminder for people to always be prepared for an
electricity outage or emergency
event."

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